Was Not Was
Pick of the Litter: 1980-2010 - Micro Werks
FILTER Grade: 91%

In 1980, the year of Was Not Was’ debut, we were still eons away from the age of anything-can-happen, cut and paste records. No samples, no loops, and most bands stayed neatly in their conventional bin. But there were rare exceptions, and Was Not Was was one of the rarest—a remarkable R&B-techno-hip-hop-pop-rock-jazz-disco band with boundless ambition and invention. Anything could and would happen on Was Not Was’ records, as the brothers Was, Don and Dave, much like a musical version of the Coen brothers (especially in terms of adventurous casting; cameos by such stars as Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson and Booker T recur), expressed themselves as much in the tracks as in the songs themselves. Inventively infectious fusions of whimsy and funk like “Walk the Dinosaur” and “Spy in the House of Love” effortlessly meld humor with soul; the lyrical heartbreak of Mel Torme’s “Zaz Turned Blue,” as beautifully strange as Sinatra singing Talking Heads, soars, while Leonard Cohen’s funny-sexy turn on “Elvis’ Rolls Royce” is pure joy. Great shape-shifting panoplies of galloping rhythms abound, peppered with trumpet blasts, samples of old movies, horn sections, furious guitar and jazzy horn solos, classic Motown-like bass lines, dimensional and crisp Steely Dan-like musicianship, and coolly clever lyrics. One for the ages, this 19-song compilation reminds us how cool the future sounded back then, when Was Not Was still was.